Evaluation of different biological test systems to assess the toxicity of metabolites from fungal biocontrol agents

The development of fungal biocontrol agents (BCAs) as alternatives to chemical pesticides is of increasing public interest. Tools to assess the toxicity of the secondary metabolites that these BCAs produce are often not available or existing methods have not yet been evaluated for these compounds. This study compares five different test systems, which include a representative bacterium, protozoan, arthropod and insect and human cell lines, as regards their sensitivity. It also compares the cost in time and resources for conducting the tests. Pure metabolites and crude extracts from two fungal BCAs as well as two chemical pesticides (hoestar and chlorpyrifos) and the mycotoxin patulin were employed as test compounds. All tests systems proved to be suitable for toxicity studies of metabolites from fungal BCAs and showed different grades of sensitivity to the different substances. The possibility of employing an array of test systems to determine ecotoxicological properties is discussed.